Nuclear power of the future is going to need fuel. That has governments, energy companies and nuclear engineers clamoring to get their hands on HALEU: high-assay low-enriched uranium. HALEU (pronounced like “Hey, Lou”) was previously a niche material, used mainly in nuclear reactors conducting scientific research. But now, multiple companies in the United States have … Read more

In A.D. 79, a massive volcano in southern Italy suddenly, explosively awoke, leading to one of the ancient world’s deadliest natural disasters. Ash and gas from the eruption killed at least 1,500 people in the ancient cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum. Now, a new analysis suggests that powerful earthquakes concurrent with the eruption may have … Read more

Waterpower may have given a big lift to builders of Egypt’s oldest known pyramid, the nearly 4,700-year-old Step Pyramid of Djoser at Saqqara. Ancient architects built a hydraulic system for hoisting stone blocks that were used to assemble King Djoser’s six-tiered, roughly 62-meter-tall pyramid, scientists propose August 5 in PLOS ONE. Controlled flows of water … Read more

NASA’s Perseverance rover has bagged its first hint of ancient microbes on Mars. “We’re not able to say that this is a sign of life,” says Perseverance deputy project scientist Katie Stack Morgan of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif.  “But this is the most compelling sample we’ve found yet.” The rover drilled up … Read more

Sometimes science fiction does inspire science research. À la Jurassic Park’s entombed mosquito, scientists have developed a method to store DNA in an amberlike material and still extract it easily hours later. This storage method is cheaper and faster than existing options, the researchers report in the June Journal of the American Chemical Society. If … Read more

Slimy heralds of hope are hopping around Yosemite National Park. Being a frog hasn’t been easy in the High Sierra or in many other places ever since a fungal parasite began exterminating frogs in the United States, Australia and Central America 30 or so years ago. But now some impacted species are beginning to recover … Read more

Reading people’s faces can literally give you a hint of how they are feeling on the inside. Mapping the face’s hot and cool spots can provide clues to a person’s biological age — that is, how fast their cells are aging — and even detect signs of chronic diseases as such as diabetes and high … Read more

A new look at decades-old data from the Apollo missions has uncovered evidence of tens of thousands of previously unrecognized moonquakes. The results could reveal details about the moon’s inner workings and could have implications for future human missions. “There were more tectonic events on the moon, it’s more tectonically active than considered before,” says … Read more

Brief blasts of light might make some materials into fleeting superconductors. A new study strengthens the case for this controversial claim, first made more than a decade ago. But while some physicists are convinced, others remain skeptical. Superconductors transmit electricity without resistance, typically only at low temperatures. But since 2011, some scientists have claimed that … Read more

Meteorologist Thea Sandmael watched the storm close in. It was near enough for her to spot a rotating dome of clouds emerging from its dark underbelly — the quickening of a tornado. By the time the spinning mass was 10 minutes away, Sandmael and her colleagues had shut down their radar instruments and evacuated their … Read more